Hope
by indigowaterbears
Summary: She was right there. She wasn't gone. Owen gowned up and quietly made his way inside, not wanting to startle her, but there was no way he was ready for what he was about to see. Amelia was sitting in a rocking chair, wearing a pink paper gown like his own, holding a tiny pink bundle in her arms, cradling it gently.
Owen's heart almost stopped as he walked in. It was late, so very late and he'd been looking for Amelia for a while now. They hadn't said a word to each other since he'd told her off in the hallway and it had just dawned on him that he had to clear things up. Starting with a profuse apology, which may or may not turn into begging, he'd do his best to patch things up. Amelia had not been avoiding him, not per se, they had been on opposite schedules and he'd seen her more than once dash out of the hospital as soon as her shift ended. Also – what had probably caused his sudden epiphany – she looked awful. Sunken cheeks, coupled with dark circles and bags under her eyes, the worst, though, were her eyes. From the lively, electric blue they had turned to a pale, washed color he didn't even recognize, that is, unless she was looking at him, because then they'd be filled with murderous rage, turning sharp as ice. He needed to make it better. Once he'd been told that she was scrubbing out from an emergency craniotomy, he'd paged her. When he got no answer he paged her again and again, until he realized her shift was over and she was probably not in the hospital anymore.

Considering he was stuck here for a bit longer he'd made himself useful going down to the ER, busying himself sewing up patients and handling the chaos. About twenty minutes in he finally got a page. One of his post op patients crashed and was dead before he arrived. Owen leaned his back against the cold wall of the ICU, rubbing a hand on his face, hoping to wipe out exhaustion and anger and disappointment and guilt. The patient, he likely wouldn't have made it, he barely made it off the table alive, but it wasn't looking all that good. Instead of walking right back to the elevator and back down to the ER, he went on a little detour, walking around the entire floor to peek inside the NICU. It shouldn't make him feel better, tiny babies struggling themselves to survive, shouldn't make him feel better, but it did. Watching parents gush over their little one breathing on their own or just move their legs or flex their fingers, made him feel better. Only it was too late today to find any of the parents still here, it was mostly deserted, incubators and monitors were all he could see. Owen took a couple of steps and noticed someone inside, sitting in a chair in front of an incubator. It was a doctor – scratch that, it was a surgeon, the navy scrubs were a dead giveaway.

Feeling brave he took a couple more steps from outside the glass and finally had a chance to take in the profile of the dark haired doctor holding a baby. She was right there. She wasn't gone. Owen gowned up and quietly made his way inside, not wanting to startle her, but there was no way he was ready for what he was about to see. Amelia was sitting in a rocking chair, wearing a pink paper gown like his own, holding a tiny pink bundle in her arms, cradling it gently. He was confused. He had no idea why Amelia was holding a baby and all kinds of scenarios came to his mind, with the force of a tornado destroying everything, leaving pieces behind.

For a moment there he was torn. He didn't know if he should make himself known or if he should just go leave her to whatever it was that she was doing. Ever the impulsive man, he swiftly stepped up to her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder before standing in front of her chair. "You're here late." He said softly.

Amelia looked at him, the usual death glare was barely there, covered by overwhelming sadness and pain. She looked up into his eyes for a while, without saying a word.

Owen smiled, letting his eyes lay on the little baby in her arms. There were wires still coming out of the pink blanket going to the monitors, but he could see tubes left in the incubators. She was hooked to heart machines and brain machines, but the EEG monitor was switched off. Her vitals looked fine, considering this was most likely a preemie, about thirty four or thirty five weeks, though, Owen wasn't really an expert. She was breathing on her own, it definitely didn't look like a baby in need of immediate medical assistance. "I paged you. A few times and you didn't answer."

"My shift ended. I'm not on call." Amelia justified herself, while looking down at the baby in her arms, gently stroking her head through the downy hat.

Owen wheeled one of the stools they had for parents and visitors over, sitting down, never taking his eyes off her. "I paged you when you were still working." He tried not to sound harsh or condescending, but he realized soon enough he was sorely failing. "It could have been an emergency, Amelia, you can't just ignore my pages."

To his utter disappointment and somewhat growing irritation at her actions, Amelia shook her head, never looking up. "I was busy. If it was an emergency you would have paged 911 and I would have come."

"Really Amelia?" he said, his tone not even attempting to mask his exasperation, but still quiet and soft not to disturb the baby. "What if I wanted to talk to you? What if I needed a consult or something?"

"You're talking to me now." She just said, never looking up at him, completely engrossed in the baby sleeping in her arms.

Owen shook his head dejectedly, recognizing avoidance a mile off, with a sprinkle of denial and a passive aggressive icing that was so uncharacteristic of Amelia, it confused him to no end. "What are you still doing here?"

Amelia smiled down at the baby as she cooed softly, stroking the soft puffy cheek with her finger. She was rocking in a slow, continuous motion, something the baby seemed to appreciate. "I'm staying with Hope." She answered, eyes planted firmly on they baby.

"Hope's the baby?" Owen asked and all he got was a non descript hum from her, which he took as an affirmative answer, nor really wanting to press for more. "Why?" the baby didn't look sick, a little small perhaps, but just barely. If she was in the NICU there had to be something wrong, but coupled with Amelia holding her, all the options were gone. If the baby had had surgery, she would be still in the incubator or if the baby had a tumor, it wouldn't make sense for Amelia to be here with her, if the baby was in any way sick, she should stay in the incubator and so on. The fact that Amelia was holding a baby itself didn't make sense at all. Unless- "Is she yours?"

Amelia looked up. A bewildered look on her face completed the frown, bulging eyes and pursed lips. "Mine? Owen have you hit your head?" She turned down to the baby, readjusting her in her arms a little. "Just because we haven't spoken in a week it doesn't mean I had a baby in the meantime. You should know it takes longer than that?"

He was fully aware of how crazy he must have sounded, but in that moment he thought everything was possible. In fact, women giving birth without knowing they were pregnant was a thing, a serious thing. Resulting generally with preemie babies. He'd maybe skipped a few steps, sounding downright certifiable. "Yeah, I do. I do." He insisted. "I just… why are you here?"

"Because," Amelia started, not paying any attention to him anymore. "Hope was left at the hospital the day she was born and she has no family."

Owen smiled, feeling sudden warmth spread through him at her words, he would never admit it, but what she'd just said made him love her even more, if that was even possible. He wouldn't tell her either. Not now. "So you're just spending time with her? That's… so generous."

But as the words came out of his mouth, her smile turned sad and he saw the glint from her glassy eyes intensify. "Technically I am her doctor." Amelia bit her cheek, swallowing the lump in her throat, looking up into Owen's calm and loving eyes. "Hope had a perinatal stroke and an ischemic stroke this morning." Suddenly Owen's eyes matched her own, paler, emptier, glassier. "They are waiting for me to declare brain death so that they can harvest her organs."

"What?" Owen was angry, but Amelia was smiling peacefully, sadly, but peacefully. "That's – that's… can they even do that? That's murder, it's horrible, inhumane… That's-"

"Unimaginable." Muttered Amelia, shifting her focus back on the little girl in her arms. She felt a tear slip down her cheek, but the smile on her face was still there, confusing Owen all that much more. "She's just a baby. She hasn't been alive a whole day and they want to take her apart. They just want her organs. It's ruthless and soulless, but do you know why they want them?"

Owen frowned deeply, not following Amelia's reasoning. Actually, he followed completely, but in the end, he still felt like he was missing the whole point. "For transplants?"

Amelia's smile broadened as she readjusted the little hat on the baby's head. "They need Hope's organs to save other babies, so, so many other babies. Hope is going to be responsible for so many babies getting to grow up. She's going to be responsible for twice as many parents watching their child learn to walk and ride a bike and graduate, instead of burying them in tiny coffins." Her eyes found Owen's and she smiled at him, a big smile, one he hadn't seen in a while and certainly one that he wasn't responsible for. "Hope is magical."

"And you're just holding her?" He asked, giving up entirely on trying to even begin to understand what was going on in Amelia's mind. "Until they take her away?"

She nodded, looking back down at the pink bundle. "She deserves to be held for as long as she has. She deserves to be loved and that's what I'm doing." Owen tilted his head, narrowing his eyes slightly, giving her a soft comforting look when her eyes looked up again. "It doesn't matter if she still has a week or a day or an hour or… forty three minutes. She deserves everything."

Finally, he got it. Owen hadn't forgotten about it, but it was easy for him not to think about him, about Amelia's baby – the one he assumed to be a boy, but didn't really know. He didn't know anything about her child, only how long he'd lived. "Did you… did you get to hold your baby?"

When she looked up, he felt like stabbing himself. Her eyes were red and puffy and the soft creases in her forehead told him she was about to cry. He'd made her cry. He set out to talk to her, apologize, and he was making her cry.

"Yeah." She sniffled, blowing out a breath, looking away desperately trying to get the unshed tears in her eyes to dry up. "I didn't want to. At first. But I did."

Owen rolled the stool a little closer to her, tentatively putting a hand on her arm, which she swatted away they second she felt it. "She's going to wake up. I don't want her to wake up. It's better like this."

But Owen didn't relent. He didn't want to push and he wasn't going to ask anymore, but he couldn't bear to see her like this, especially give what had happened in the last few days. His hand slid to her knee, as her arms were both full of baby Hope, he knew she would have no way to shake it off. "Amelia."

She sniffled hearing her name, knowing it was an invite to talk or ask or lean into him for comfort as it was an invite to sit in silence in the NICU, waiting for the newborn in her arms to die. "I held him until they took him away. They took him apart. I let them open my baby up for parts." Her eyes travelled from his hand on her leg, all the way up her arm and to his face. He looked like Sam had when he found out, he looked at her like she was a monster. "You know all those things they say you can't fully understand until you're a parent? Pretty sure that's one of those."

"How are you…" his voice was hoarse and watery. "How do you hold her knowing she'd going to die any second? How can you do this without dying inside?"

Amelia shrugged. "I have. Died inside. Watching your own baby knowing he doesn't stand a chance, when you watch him go into respiratory failure knowing there isn't a single thing a room full of amazing doctors can do, you change. A part of you dies, it has to or you wouldn't survive all that pain."

Owen nodded mutely to the ground, finally beginning to understand the woman sitting in front of him a little more. Her words were sinking in, slowly, cutting the flesh like dagger, settling like ice in his bones. He had no idea how Amelia had managed to survive something like that. His admiration for her was now limitless. Looking up, as he caught a blurry of movement, he saw Amelia shift Hope, laying her on her chest, placing a calming hand on her back.

"Fluids build up." She offered, without even looking at him. In the sudden change, one arm had slipped from the snug bundle and was grasping at her neck. Owen looked up with renewed light in his eyes and he turned to Amelia with a smile, but her own smile was gone. "It's just a spasm," she said, her voice cracking. "She's lost all motor control."

It was Owen's turn to swallow the lump in his throat as he watched Amelia cuddle little Hope, comforting her as she started to fuss. They sat in silence for maybe half an hour, neither intent on ruining this precarious balance between them, neither wanting to take any of those conversations any further. Owen felt like he was experiencing something bigger than him, something he'd seen his friends go through, something people went through every day and yet, he felt like he might never recover. His implacable need to have his own child today was gone, maybe it would show up again tomorrow or the next day, but today he decided he never, ever wanted to feel this again. Amelia was stronger than him, she was. Amelia was a mom and he often forgot that. Just because she didn't have her son with her, she wasn't any less of a mother. He wasn't any less of a son because his father died.

It was Amelia that broke the silence, shifting gently on her chair to reach one of the monitors. Owen didn't even look up, unable to do anything but sit there. Her hand on his hand on her knee got her his full attention. "Can you page Arizona?"

"It's time?" he asked.

Amelia just nodded. "It's time."

He straightened up, paging Robbins, while Amelia gently laid the baby back down in her incubator, carefully placing all the wires and tubes she'd removed earlier. Nurses started rushing in, followed by Arizona and a few more surgeons, but Owen wasn't paying attention. Instead, he put his hand on Amelia's shoulder, firmly, getting her to run around and face him. "Do you have to be there for the surgery?" she just shook her head. "Then you're coming with me."

"Owen-"

"Whatever you were going to say, stop. You are not staying alone tonight, I'll sleep on the couch or on the floor, honestly I don't care." He brought his hand up to her face, stroking her cheek gently. "I'll be right outside this door when you're finished."

He looked to the door of the NICU and then back into her eyes until she gave a small nod. Owen walked out, allowing her however times she needed to walk out of that room, internally screaming that he had somehow managed to get her to go with him. He had no idea how much help he would be, but at least neither one would have to be alone.


End file.
